posted on August 26, 2016 by Rebecca Zanetti

FIVE THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT THE APOCALYPSE

Shadow FallingHi all!  I hope everyone is having a  wonderful summer.  I’m gearing up for the release of SHADOW FALLING on August 30th.  It’s the second book in the Scorpius Syndrome series, and boy, did I do a lot of research before writing those.  Here are five things I didn’t realize when I started researching what would happen if a bacteria or virus took out most of the human race:

  1. The Internet will go down much faster than anybody thinks. While the Internet is self-sustainable, the servers that control it are not.  And guess how many people really know how to take care of those servers?  About 5000.  That’s it.
  2. Anti-bacterial ointment will be like gold.   Imagine surviving the apocalypse, learning to live without many of the basic comforts we have today, and then dying from a little scratch on your arm that gets infected.  Hoard Neosporin like crazy, my friends.
  3. Nature will retake the earth very quickly. Some of the research I conducted included watching videos of places that were abandoned after being inhabited by people, and nature came back fast, green, and hard.  Cities will crumble much faster than we would think.
  4. The smartest people in the world pretty much think it’s a matter of when and not if. There are several documentaries with world famous scientists speculating on how and when…but not one of them questioned ‘if.’  So that’s a little freaky, right?
  5. Fruitcake doesn’t go bad. I know.  This is a funny one.  But fruitcake lasts forever.  Who knew?

All right.  I hope you heed my advice and buy a bunch of Neosporin and start baking fruitcake.  LOL!  Everyone have a wonderful rest of the summer, and here’s a brief excerpt from SHADOW FALLING:

The nightmare clawed through Vinnie, ripping and gnashing, until she awoke, her mouth opened in a silent scream.

Thank God. Finally, she’d been quiet. They’d had to move her quarters three times already because her night terrors scared the hell out of normal people. Now she lived in the bottom far corner of a sparsely populated residence in Vanguard territory, which was seven square blocks of relative safety in a dark world.

She leaped from the bed, her bare feet slapping ripped linoleum. Her lungs compressed and tremors shook her legs. She couldn’t breathe. God, she couldn’t breathe.

Bending over, she planted a hand on her chest.

Air.

She needed air.

Launching into motion, she ran through the dilapidated tenement to the creaky sliding glass door and yanked it open. Rain, cold and drizzly, cascaded inside on a burst of wind. Undaunted by the storm or the darkness outside, she pushed through weeds choking torn concrete and stumbled onto the abandoned road.

Sharp rocks and pieces of debris cut into her feet, but she paid no heed. Crossing the worn asphalt, she reached the chain-link fence protecting all seven blocks of Vanguard territory.

Her hands wrapped around the chain link near her face, and even in her panic, she remembered not to reach up to the barbed wire.

Thunder bellowed above as what was once the City of Angels gave itself over to the short but devastating rainy season. She held tight and lifted her head, allowing the rain to barrage her.

“You’re early tonight.” A voice, low and masculine, cut through the storm from the other side of the fence.

She blinked and stared into the darkness. The streets, abandoned to weeds, stretched in every direction across the empty, dark land. “Where are you?” she whispered.

He came into view, silent like any predator, stepping right up to the fence. “You’re getting wet, Doc.”

She wiped water from her eyes. “I didn’t scream this time.”

“I know.” Raze Shadow, one of the elite Vanguard lieutenants, had rescued her from hell a week ago while on a mission.

If he hadn’t heard her scream this time, was he just patrolling nearby? She shivered. “How is patrol going?”

His eyes, such a light blue as to be odd, lasered through the dark, touching on her toes and wandering up her bare legs and soaking white T-shirt to her damp face. Somehow, even in the cold and through the fence, the gaze heated her skin. “Go back inside, Vivienne.”

“No.” She couldn’t. She just couldn’t return to the nightmare and that dismal apartment. “I’m fine.” Except her left foot hurt. A lot. She lifted her leg and stretched her ankle, squinting to see through the darkness.

Raze tucked an AK-47 over a shoulder, his gaze dropping to her aching foot. His shoulders straightened. “Damn it. Stay there.” Long strides took him down the length of the fence until she couldn’t see him any longer.

The wind whistled a lonely tune over the barren land, and somewhere in the distance, a lion roared. Probably Marvin. She hadn’t seen the beast, but some of the other Vanguard residents had warned her about him. He’d escaped some zoo when the world had died from the Scorpius bacterium, and now he hunted survivors and other predators alike.

Cold blasted through her thin shirt and she trembled.

“Vivienne?” Raze gave her warning that he was near.

She turned, and he came into view on her side of the fence. “That was fast.”

“Humph.” He reached her in two strides. “It isn’t safe out here.”

Mercury Striking“It isn’t safe anywhere,” she whispered.

His chest settled. “Inside.”

The cold pricked over her skin and she nodded, turning. The second her damaged heel touched asphalt, the injury stung. She sucked in air.

He planted a large hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”

She stiffened. He’d taken great pains not to touch her during her one week in Vanguard territory, always remaining distant but polite. “Yes.” She gritted her teeth and took another step, trying to balance on her toes.

He exhaled loudly. Shaking his head, he lifted her and pivoted toward the building. So easily.

Warmth and male surrounded her in the closest thing she’d had to protection in months. Her heart stuttered and her body softened into his strength.  For the moment, safety surrounded her in the form of hard muscles.

Yet Raze Shadow was nowhere near safe.

I’m giving away two digital copies of MERCURY STRIKING, book one in the Scorpius Syndrome series to commenters here today.  Just answer this question:  Name one thing we should do to prepare for the Apocalypse.  

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Rebecca Zanetti

Rebecca Zanetti

New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly and #1 Amazon bestselling author Rebecca Zanetti has published more than sixty novels, which have been translated into several languages, with more than five million copies sold world-wide. Her books have received Publishers Weekly starred reviews and have been featured in Entertainment Weekly, Woman's World, and Women's Day Magazines. Her novels have also been included in Amazon best books of the year and have been favorably reviewed in both the Washington Post and the New York Times Book Reviews. Rebecca has ridden in a locked Chevy trunk, has asked the unfortunate delivery guy to release her from a set of handcuffs, and has discovered the best silver mine shafts in which to bury a body...all in the name of research. Honest. Find Rebecca at: www.RebeccaZanetti.com

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17 thoughts on “FIVE THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT THE APOCALYPSE”

  1. JoAn V. says:

    Hoard water and batteries as well as Neosporin.

  2. Make Kay says:

    Collect books about how to do stuff, e.g. Make soap, make candles, home remedies. Like we’re living in frontier times!

  3. Lucy mullikin says:

    Bake lots of fruitcake.

  4. Lucy mullikin says:

    Bake lots of fruitcake. And lots of neosporin

  5. Zil says:

    Take a bag, pack it with as many books that it can fit. Lol, actually fill the bag with a battery, basic medical supplies, water, a gun, some food and I guess you are set.

  6. Linda Babbs says:

    Think I would hoard like the Dragons – – Wine numerous kindles with many many of my kind of books stored. Some kind of power to keep them running ( I have no idea what that is) Cozy slippers. I will take a Raze Shadow please and thank you too.

  7. ChristyK says:

    Definitely, hoard water, canned foods, medical supplier including antibiotic ?, blankets, batteries etc., and diy and medical books, transistor and cb/ham radios, plan ahead with family and friends about where to go and assign certain things for each to do or bring.

  8. Tracy W says:

    Start stockpiling water and food.

  9. ROBIN D says:

    Stockpile water and have a go bag.

  10. Deborah says:

    Hoard how to books, seeds, various medicines, tools, batteries, and weapons and ammunition.

  11. Joyce Thompson says:

    I think we should hoard toilet paper. Or maybe hoard booze. They are 2 things always in demand & would make a good form of “currency.”

  12. Artemis says:

    Will be heading to the bookstore on release day, Tuesday! Good thing I like fruitcake! One thing each and everyone on this planet can do is stop the excessive waste and consumption. That will slow down the Apocalypse. After that, don’t rely on technology. I’m not surprised at the younger generations today who don’t know how to cook from scratch; grow, harvest, and preserve their own food, hunt or fish. And not necessarily with modern weapons. It was comical explaining to our grandchildren and children what a “rabbit gum” was. A very old trap used to catch small prey – aka rabbits. The survival of the fittest will show.

  13. Linda says:

    Learn to make fruit cake and store a lot of it. Stock pile Neosporin and other medical supplies, guns and ammo, bottle water, alternative cooking and heating supplies, can goods, blankets

  14. bn100 says:

    find food

  15. Eileen says:

    Every time you go to Costco buy some canned goods. Also Amazon sells these cool water filters for like 10 bucks.. could come in handy.

  16. Brittany B says:

    Stockpile water/food and first aid supplies

    1. Brittany B says:

      Just realized that was about 3 answers instead of the one that we were suppose to chose. So I’ll say a first aid kit(with neosporin of course)

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